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How can I create a unit plan as an educator?

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Toddle helps you design and implement units with ease while staying aligned with your school’s curriculum guidelines. You can also collaborate with colleagues to co-create meaningful units and teaching strategies for your students.

In this article:

Create a new unit

Explore your unit creation page

Planner Tab

Reflections Tab

Use key planning tools and features

Work with a blueprint-linked course unit

Create a new unit

To begin:

Go to your course → ‘Course plan’ tab from the left navigation menu. You will see a list of all existing units arranged in sequence.

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Click on ‘+ Add’ at the top of the page to create a new unit.

In a subject-based setup, from the dropdown, choose ‘Interdisciplinary unit’ or ‘Subject-specific unit’, as per your preference.

In a course-based setup, you will see the ‘Create unit’ option.

Note: Your access to create or edit unit plans depends on your course role:

If you are a course editor, you can create and manage units within the course.

If you are a course viewer, you will only be able to view existing units.

Tip: If you do not want to create a unit from scratch, you can import an existing unit from the School library. Refer to

this article⁠

to learn more about importing units.

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The planner contains several elements arranged in the outline on the left. Navigate through these sections and enter the relevant details to complete your unit plan.

Note: The section outline in the left pane and the fields within may vary if your school uses a customized planner.

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Explore your unit creation page

The unit creation page includes four main tabs — Planner, Unit flow, Evidencing, and Reflections — to help you plan, organize, and reflect effectively.

The Planner tab is where you define goals, design assessments, and structure your learning plan.

The Unit flow tab lets you organize your teaching materials and tasks in a logical sequence. You can arrange content week-wise, topic-wise, or by concept.

The Evidencing tab displays portfolio posts tagged to your unit, helping you track learning evidence and student progress.

The Reflections tab supports reflective practice by allowing teachers and students to document insights and feedback about the unit.

Refer to detailed articles on Unit flow and Evidencing for step-by-step guidance. This article covers the Planner and Reflections tab.

Planner tab

Use the Planner tab to capture the core elements of your unit — define learning goals, design assessments, and outline how learning will take place.

Add basic details

In the ‘Basic details’ section, you can define the foundational information for your unit.

Fill in the following fields:

Cover image – Upload an image or choose one from Pixabay that visually represents your unit.

Unit title – Enter a clear and descriptive name for your unit.

Subject(s) – Select one or more subjects linked to this unit, depending on the unit type selected.

For a subject-specific unit, you can select only one subject.

For an interdisciplinary unit, you can select multiple subjects from the list linked to the current course.

Note: This field will not appear in course-based setups.

Start date and End date – Define the duration of the unit.

Unit summary – Provide a short overview of the unit that can be shared with students, families, and other staff.

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Complete unit planner stages

Each stage helps you define learning goals, plan assessments, and design learning experiences.

The exact sections and field names may vary based on your school’s selected unit planner template. However, most planners include the following stages:

Stage 1 – Desired results

Identify the learning goals and outcomes for your unit.

Standards – Select the relevant curriculum or subject standards that your unit will address.

In a subject-based setup:

At least one subject must be selected in the Basic details section for this field to be enabled. Once subject(s) are selected, you will see the standards of those subjects added to the course.

In a course-based setup:

All standards tagged to the course are visible.

For both, you can use the toggle switch at the top of the standards window to switch between viewing only the standards added to the course and all standards available in your school. This ensures you can access and tag the most relevant standards for your unit.

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Skills – Choose from the list of skills and sub-skills configured by your school administrator.

Note: These skills are mapped to grade levels in the admin portal. You will see the skills linked to the grade of your current course and can select one or more from this list.

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Transfer goals – List the long-term accomplishments students should be able to apply independently by the end of the unit.

Understandings – Highlight the key ideas and concepts students should grasp and be able to explain.

Essential questions – Frame thought-provoking questions that guide inquiry and help students make meaning of their learning.

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Stage 2 – Evidence

Plan how students will demonstrate their understanding of the unit’s goals.

Performance Task(s) – Describe how students will demonstrate meaning-making and knowledge transfer by completing real-world performance tasks.

Supplementary Evidence – Record additional forms of evidence that will help you evaluate whether learning goals have been met.

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Stage 3 – Learning plan

Design learning experiences that help students achieve the desired results.

Pre-assessment – Plan activities that help identify students’ existing knowledge, interests, skills, and possible misconceptions.

Learning Experiences – Outline key activities that build understanding and skills through exploration and application.

Formative assessments – Add ongoing assessments that help monitor progress and provide feedback during the learning process.

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Reflections tab

The Reflections tab allows teachers and students to record insights about the unit’s planning, process, and impact. Reflection helps evaluate what worked well, what can be improved, and how future learning can be strengthened.

You’ll find dedicated spaces for both teacher and student reflections within this tab.

Teacher reflections

Use this section to record reflections during and after the teaching of a unit.

During teaching the unit – Capture ongoing insights about what is working well, areas that need improvement, and how students are responding to the learning experiences. These reflections help you make timely adjustments to teaching strategies.

After teaching the unit – Reflect on how effectively learning goals were achieved, which strategies and resources worked best, and what changes you would make in future iterations of the unit.

Student reflections

Student reflections encourage learners to take ownership of their learning by thinking critically about their progress, challenges, and growth.

As a teacher, you can record student reflections on their behalf using the provided prompts.

If your unit is shared with students, they can add reflections directly in this section.

Students can view and edit only their own reflections.

Teachers can view all reflections and delete them when needed.

Both teacher and student reflections support rich text formatting — you can add links, files, emojis, audio notes, equations, and tables.

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Use key planning tools and features

Toddle provides several built-in tools across the unit planner to make your planning process smoother and more collaborative.

1. Light bulb icon

Click the light bulb icon beside any section title to view information about that element.

It offers guidance on what to include and helps ensure your planning stays aligned with curriculum expectations and best practices.

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2. Chat icon

Use the chat icon to collaborate with colleagues directly within the unit. Collaborators include all teachers added to the course, co-teachers, and anyone with view or edit access to the unit - they are automatically added when given access through the course.

You can:

Tag and reply to peers

Share comments or questions

Add emojis or audio notes

All collaborators receive notifications when new comments are added.

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3. Three-dot menu

Access additional options to manage your unit:

Planner overview – View a consolidated snapshot of all the information added across sections.

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Insights – Check how your unit aligns across standards and skills. Refer to

this article⁠

to learn more.

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Download planner – Download or print a PDF version of your unit plan. Refer to this article to learn more.

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Hide prompts – Hide Toddle’s guiding prompts within the Reflections tab.

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Delete unit – Remove the unit from your course plan. Note: Only the course creator or a school administrator can delete units. Deleted units are added to the bin and can be restored only by your school administrator.

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4. View/Edit mode switcher

Switch between ‘Edit’ mode (to update content) and ‘View mode’ (to preview your unit plan).

Note: By default, the unit opens in edit mode.

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5. Assessments and resources window

Use the books icon to:

Access all assessments created by you or other collaborators for this unit.

Search or filters to locate specific items quickly

Add new content using the plus icon in the right panel

Refer to

this article⁠

to learn more about creating assessments as an educator.

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6. Curriculum design assistant

If your school has subscribed to Toddle AI in unit planning, you will see an additional button - Curriculum design assistant - within your planner.

This AI-powered chatbot helps you:

Generate or refine key planning elements

Suggest assessments and learning experiences

Organize your unit into a clear and cohesive flow

To know more about how the curriculum design assistant functions, refer to

this article⁠

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Work with a blueprint-linked course unit

If your course is connected to a blueprint course, some parts of the unit planner may behave differently.

Blueprint courses help schools maintain consistency across classes by syncing shared content to multiple teacher courses.

Here’s what to keep in mind while creating or editing units in a blueprint-linked course:

Locked units –

Units or sections locked at the blueprint level cannot be edited or deleted in linked teacher courses.

A lock icon appears beside the locked unit or section name to indicate restricted access.

Any changes to these locked items can only be made in the blueprint course and then synced to all linked teacher courses.

Unlocked units –

Unlocked units continue to receive updates from the blueprint unless they are edited in the teacher course. Once a teacher modifies an unlocked unit, it stops syncing further changes from the blueprint.

Teachers can always create new units, learning experiences, and resources within their course, even when some blueprint content is locked. These items will not affect the blueprint course.

Note: Syncing is one-way. Changes made in teacher courses do not flow back to the blueprint course. For more information on blueprint courses, refer to

this article⁠

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